


Nil Mea Refert

by shiplizard



Series: Rivers Forever [2]
Category: Forever (TV), Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Bad Accents, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, nerd friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4256016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/shiplizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas Wahl and Peter Grant and horrible international accents, oh my! (A short follow-up to Tik Tok)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nil Mea Refert

**Author's Note:**

> No beta on this one

I dialed the number of the New York OCME at nine at night–meaning three in the afternoon in New York. I’d wanted to catch Doctor Morgan as soon as I had a good excuse to, and the news that Doctor Walid’s test results had been put in the post not an hour ago was reason enough.

The post. Because somewhere in New York was a white, upper-middle-class doctor in his apparent middle thirties who’d never been introduced to email. I mean. I suppose they must exist, but it was another bullet on the ever growing list of reasons that Doctor Henry Morgan, ME, worried me.

Lest you think I’m over-reacting, number one on that list is the fact that when I met him he put off the second or third strongest vestigia I’d ever got off a living body. Vestigia is what Isaac Newton named the sensory after-images of strong magic– Henry Morgan carried the crushing pressure and rush of deep water with him, the whiff of gunpowder, and this undefinable sense of– you know, in spring, when the flowers have come out, and it’s all alive-?

Yeah. It’s the little things, isn’t it.

The phone stopped ringing, and a voice said: “OCME,” in a usefully distracted sort of way.

“I’m looking for Doctor Morgan,” I said pleasantly.

One of two things usually happens after a stranger on the phone asks after a third party without introducing themselves first. There’s the first version, in which the savvy ask ‘Who may I say is calling?’ and the less savvy but still sharp ask 'Who’s this?’ with thinly veiled suspicion. Then you’ve got the second version, friend to social engineers and coppers, in which gullible, distracted, overworked or apathetic person on the other line simply goes and fetches whoever.

I was prepared for the first version and hoping for the second. Instead, I got a rare third version: the voice on the other end of the line adopted that stuffy head-cold voice Americans seem to think sounds British.

“So terribly sorry, this is Doctor Mowgan.”

Well.

At least I knew who I’d caught on the phone.

Inadvisably, I pitched my voice in my best impersonation of the one non-televised American I’d spent much time with– and if you don’t tell Agent Reynolds I won’t.

“Gosh, Doctor Morgan, I’m sorry, should I call back when the novocaine has worn off?”

“I- wait a moment- Pardon me-” the accent wavered in and out on the other side of the line, and then resolved itself into Lucas Wahl’s normal speaking voice. “That’s the worst midwest accent I’ve ever heard. And I watch the BBC, okay? Who is this?”

“It’s the police, Doctor 'Mow-gan,’” I said sweetly. “We’re on you for smuggling scarves.”

“Oh my god. Peter?”

“Hey, Lucas. Your boss in?”

“He’s out.” Did I detect a hint of caginess? “He caught a case with the NYPD, he’ll be at the crimescene all afternoon. Was the accent that bad? I’ve been saying I have a cold.”

“Lucas,” I said, kindly.

“Yeah. Okay. Fine. Thanks for the criticism. Peri Brown.”

Ouch. But fair, likely. I obliged, anyway, because Lucas is a friend, and drove my voice up into my nose: “Oh, Doctor! Your coat is so loud it’s drowning out my completely authentic accent!”

Lucas had a quiet coughing fit on the other side of the phone– it’s nice knowing someone finds you funny. That’s short around the Folly; lots of tolerant looks are my lot.

“Why’re you answering the phone as your boss?”

“…long story?” he said, in that hopeful tone that says 'goodness officer it’s so boring I’m sure you have better things to do.’ He knows better than to try it on me, but he also knows he’s a large body of water away from my jurisdiction and that I don’t buy myself trouble when I can help it. Mostly.

“Is it anything I should know about?” I asked, just to make sure.

“No. It’s not weird. Trust me, I’m primed and looking for weird.” Lucas sighed with resignation.

I believed him. And if this was just some odd office fraud, it was well off my patch.

Lucas would tell me if it was magic. Probably text me at three am, frankly; he was eager to find the supernatural and the uncanny, had that sort of modern horror sensibility of darkness around the edges of everything, conspiracies lurking in the pantry. 

We’d met years ago online, but it was only recently we’d met in person– I’d put a face to the online presence. He was taller than me, white, untidy brown hair, in late twenties but could pass for earlier on sheer enthusiasm alone. He’d been incredibly eager to hear more about what I’d euphemistically referred to as 'weird shit’ (what with the NYPD not having a proper callsign like we do– 'falcon’, roughly translating to 'this is weird, call in the Harry Potter types at the Folly and bugger off for a pint’.) His joy in the supernatural was charming, and reminded me more than a bit of the young teenaged girl who’d found out from my mum that I was a witch hunter and now wanted to be in on the magic stuff too, to the tune of ghost hunting and tutoring on my weekends off.

There’s a reason I haven’t dropped the m-word in front of Lucas.

“Right,” I said. “I’d just wanted to tell him his test results were in the post.” And try to politely get some answers out of him, but I’d have to wait until he wasn’t expecting me to try again.

“Are they-?” Lucas started, and said: “I mean, is he okay?”

“I haven’t seen. Confidentiality. But Doctor Walid would have called himself if he was in danger.”

Over-exposure to magic is almost always fatal– it leaves holes in your brain. It’s why you don’t get many hobbyists in my line of work. Until they’d invented the MRI, the first sign of over-exposure was a stroke. If you were lucky.

Vestigia doesn’t take to human flesh very well– stone and metal certainly, some plastics, but wood and dirt and bodies barely take an impression. What I’d got off Doctor Morgan had been so strong, so present, that it indicated that whatever he’d been exposed to had been incredibly strong and very recent.

And he’d survived it, apparently in very good health. And he smelled like a river. But he wasn’t a river god– of that I was almost sure.

For a one, most of the rivers I know have smartphones and check their email regularly.

“Okay. Okay.” Lucas still sounded worried. He’s fond of his boss. “Tell me if anything changes, okay?”

“Will do. And keep your ears out.”

“Right.”

A strong part of me wanted to know what the hell Lucas thought he was doing and why he was impersonating his boss. The rest of me…

Was going to have dinner and do my Latin homework. Not my patch.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Nihil mea refert' is as close as I can tell the rough translation of 'not my problem'. All legal/jurisdictional problems are more official in Latin.


End file.
